Fabster 133 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 (edited) LSP friends, Even thou I've been a follower of this great site for quite some time, this is actually my first thread which is also about my very first attempt at scratchbuilding anything. I started this project several years ago but I abandoned mostly because I lacked enough references (and experience) in these delicate matters. Just a few weeks ago I decided to retake the subject now that I have better photo references thou i'm still missing the experience, lol. Anyway, I hope I guess this one finished this time while at the same time learning this scratchbuilding stuff as I go. Please play along with me! The first thing I did back then was to carve a fuselage master using 2 planks of balsa wood, based on some blueprints I requested from Pilatus a couple 2-3 decades ago. Literally! ...I put those drawings to good use, scanning them to scale them down to 1/32nd, then redrawing the cross sections in CorelDraw and creating some cardboard guides to check against my carving progress. The resulting piece may not be 100% accurate but close enough for my purposes. The fuselage sides (an other test pieces I also created back then) were stored for several years until now when I decided to prodeed with vacuuforming the fuselage. With the help of a friend who built a rudimentary vacuum box himself, I finally got my balsa fuselage "translated" to plastic (after a few failed attempts of course). Ok, sorry for the long introduction to this project. Here are the old pictures of my balsa master and a recent image of my new vacuuformed fuselage. This adventure is going to be fun, I hope! Edited July 4, 2014 by Fabster Timmy!, Lars Befring, Uilleann and 5 others 8 Link to post Share on other sites
LSP_Kevin 32,050 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Wow, what a debut project! Fabulous. Welcome aboard! Kev Link to post Share on other sites
Derek B 4,322 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Brilliant! Welcome to LSP. I like the PC-7 (I am more familiar with the PC-9 having worked on them, but I prefer the PC-7). I really enjoy watching scratch builders ply their craft. Derek Uilleann 1 Link to post Share on other sites
rafju 466 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Hello Fabster I like the Pilatus PC7 too and I'll follow your post. Thanks you for sharing! Raf Link to post Share on other sites
Out2gtcha 35,938 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Awesome! At first looking at those vac molds for a second I thought "Wow Stephen is going to love this.............a plane made just like he used to make them...........out of a solid block of wood..." Youll get the reference if you hang out long enough. Welcome and looking forward to more prorgess! Youngtiger1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Fabster 133 Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 Kevin: Thank you for allowing me to join the forum and this Group Build and for the warm welcome. Guys: thank you for the nice comments and reception. I hope not to disappoint! FAB Link to post Share on other sites
Loic 1,928 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Looks very interesting !! Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Peterpools Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Welcome aboard Terrific start on a wonderful scratch build project Keep 'em comoing Peter Link to post Share on other sites
Ripaman 459 Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Fab, welcome to the forum, Very nice mold you have made and by looking at your Vac form it has come out just right Regards Richard Link to post Share on other sites
Cees Broere 1,756 Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 That's very nice. My Whitley fuselage is stalled just because of that. I felt the cutting away of big balsa chunks is a bit daunting.Cheers Cees Link to post Share on other sites
Mikkel 29 Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Heeeeey Fabouless Fabian!!! So you finialy decided to post your awesome build here!!! good luck mate, and now show the Pucara, you know you want to! Link to post Share on other sites
Christian 20 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Very Interesting. Look forward to more process. Link to post Share on other sites
Fabster 133 Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 I have a little more progress from this week to show you guys. Thanks a lot for all your previous replies, everyone! So I trimmed one of the spare fuselage vacs to use it as testbed to develop and test the cockpit layout. I was "measuring by eye", looking at some interior picts that I have an trying to match distance and proportion to all main elements agains each other so a lot of trial and error to get to this point which by no means is near perfect nor complete but at least will give me a closer idea on what to do or fix next. Remember this is my first attempt at scratchbuilding so please be gentle! lol FAB Out2gtcha, Uilleann, Lars Befring and 1 other 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Out2gtcha 35,938 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Mmmmmm cool! Nice work so far Link to post Share on other sites
Starfighter 4,972 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Most impressive! Link to post Share on other sites
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